Guardian: “Climate change is real and a real problem for the world, Apple said on Monday, announcing its progress on environment targets ahead of Earth day.”“The technology company, publishing a video narrated by CEO Tim Cook on its green initiatives and updated environment web pages, claimed that 94% of its corporate facilities and 100% of its data centres are now powered by renewable energy sources such as solar power.
Lisa Jackson, the former administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency and Apple’s vice-president for environmental initiative, wrote in a letter: “We feel the responsibility to consider everything we do in order to reduce our impact on the environment. This means using greener materials and constantly inventing new ways to conserve precious resources.”
….Greenpeace, which has previously been critical of Apple for sourcing energy from fossil fuels, recently praised the company for improving the energy mix powering its data centres, ranking it above other technology giants such as Amazon. Apple’s Maiden data centre in North Carolina is powered by a large 20MW solar farm and biogas fuel cells.
Apple said its carbon footprint in 2013 was 33.8m metric tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in 2013, or around 5% of the UK’s annual CO2 emissions for the same year. Around three-quarters of the emissions come from manufacturing. “We believe climate change is real. And that it’s a real problem,” the company’s website now says.”